The present Invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Strawberry plant, botanically known as Fragaria L., and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Sonata’.
The new Strawberry is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Wageningen, The Netherlands. The objective of the breeding program was to develop new high-yielding Strawberry cultivars with good fruit quality, good postharvest longevity and ease of harvesting.
The new Strawberry originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor during the summer of 1990 of the Fragaria L. cultivar Elsanta, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with the Fragaria L. cultivar Polka, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Strawberry was discovered and selected by the Inventor from within the resultant progeny from the above-mentioned cross-pollination in a controlled environment in Wageningen, The Netherlands during the summer of 1992.
Asexual reproduction since the fall of 1992 of the new cultivar by cuttings in a controlled environment in Elst, The Netherlands, has shown that the unique features of this new Strawberry are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.